Oklahoma: A Story Through Her People

OKLAHOMA
STATE
UNIVERSITY
Above: Old Central.
PHOTOGRAPH BY PHIL SHOCKLEY.
Below: First-day students.
PHOTOGRAPH BY PHIL SHOCKLEY.
The story of Oklahoma State University
began on Christmas Eve, 1890, at the
McKennon Opera House in Oklahoma’s
territorial capital of Guthrie when Territorial
Governor George W. Steele signed legislation
establishing an Oklahoma Agricultural and
Mechanical College (OAMC) in Payne County.
OAMC’s first students assembled for class on
December 14, 1891, even though there were
no buildings, no books, and no curriculum.
The college’s first students attended classes
in the Stillwater Congregational Church. The
original campus consisted of 200 acres of
prairie that were donated by four local
homesteaders. The college’s first six graduates
received their diplomas in 1896.
Visitors to the OSU campus often marvel
at its beauty and consistency of architecture.
Much of the credit goes to legendary president,
Henry G. Bennett, who served from 1928-
1951. Dr. Bennett’s twenty-five year campus
master plan envisioned some of the university’s
most famous and beautiful structures, including
the Edmon Low Library and the OSU Student
Union. A new campus master plan is guiding
unprecedented construction that is making
OSU more competitive in academics and
athletics. Starting in the fall of 2008, OSU has
opened the new Multimodal Transportation
Terminal, the new North Classroom Building,
the west end zone of Boone Pickens Stadium,
refurbished Old Central, the Donald W.
Reynolds Architecture Building, an upgraded
Murray Hall, the new Henry Bellmon Research
Center, an updated and expanded Student
Union, the Sherman Smith Training Center, the
Postal Plaza Gallery, the Greenwood Tennis
Center and a new outdoor track. And several
other major projects are in the works.
OSU grew quite rapidly following World
War II. The post-war years were marked by a
huge enrollment surge and the development of
the “Veteran’s Village” living community. The
mid-1940s also were a golden era for athletics
at Oklahoma A&M. In a ninety day period in
early 1945, OAMC teams won the Cotton
Bowl, the NCAA championship in wrestling,
and the NCAA championship in basketball.
The next year, the wrestling and basketball
teams repeated as national champions, and
the football team won the Sugar Bowl. OSU’s
success continues today across both men’s and
women’s athletics. The school has won fiftyone
NCAA championships to rank fourth in
the country and tops in the Big 12 Conference.
By the 1950s the college had grown
substantially and in 1957, OAMC became
Oklahoma State University for Agriculture and
Applied Science. OSU enrollment more than
doubled from 10,385 in 1957 to more than
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